PurposeAlthough schema therapy has been predominantly applied to treat personality disorders, interest into its application in other clinical disorders is growing. Central to schema therapy are Early Maladaptive Schemas (EMS) and Schema Modes. Since existing EMS and Schema Modes were primarily developed in the context of personality disorders, their relevance for clinical disorders is unclear.MethodsWe conducted a systematic review of the presence of EMS and Schema Modes in clinical disorders according to DSM criteria. Per disorder, we evaluated which EMS and Schema Modes were more pronounced in comparison with clinical as well as non‐clinical control groups and which EMS and Schema Modes were most highly endorsed within the disorder.ResultsAlthough evidence concerning EMS was scarce for several disorders, and only few studies on Schema Modes survived inclusion criteria, we identified meaningful relationships and patterns for EMS and Schema Modes in various clinical disorders.ConclusionsThe present review highlights the relevance of EMS and Schema Modes for clinical disorders beyond personality disorders. Depending on the theme of the representation, EMS act as vulnerabilities both across diagnoses and for specific disorders. Thus, EMS and resulting Schema Modes are potential, valuable targets for the prevention and treatment of clinical disorders.
Positively imagined activities may capture visual attention due to an increase in positive value. Increasing attention toward activities, in turn, may prove useful for clinical interventions aiming to motivate behavioral engagement. Employing a within-subject experimental design, we examined the effect of positive imagery on attention using a visual probe task with concurrent eye tracking. Adults from the general population (N = 54) imagined performing activities involving visually presented objects in a positive (focusing on the positive emotional impact) or neutral (focusing on a neutral circumstance) manner. They then completed a visual probe task using picture stimuli depicting one object per type of imagery. Positive compared to neutral imagery increased self-reported behavioral motivation and biased the direction, but not the duration, of gaze toward objects associated with the imagined activities. An exploratory analysis showed a positive association between the direction bias and depressive symptoms. Our findings build on existing literature on positive imagery as a motivational amplifier by highlighting early attention as an underlying cognitive mechanism.
Positively imagined activities may capture visual attention due to an increase in positive value. Increasing attention toward activities, in turn, may prove useful for clinical interventions aiming to motivate behavioral engagement. Employing a within-subject experimental design, we examined the effect of positive imagery on attention using a visual probe task with concurrent eye tracking. Adults from the general population (N = 54) imagined performing activities involving visually presented objects in a positive (focusing on the positive emotional impact) or neutral (focusing on a neutral circumstance) manner. They then completed a visual probe task using picture stimuli depicting one object per type of imagery. Positive compared to neutral imagery increased self-reported behavioral motivation and biased the direction, but not the duration, of gaze toward objects associated with the imagined activities. An exploratory analysis showed a positive association between the direction bias and depressive symptoms. Our findings build on existing literature on positive imagery as a motivational amplifier by highlighting early attention as an underlying cognitive mechanism.
Episodic imagery has been shown to amplify emotion more than abstract verbal representations. This may prove useful for clinical interventions aiming to motivate adaptive behaviours. However, most findings rely on self-report measures and verbal control conditions not designed to actively prevent automatic engagement in episodic imagery. We thus investigated the difference in emotionality between Episodic Imagery (EI) and Verbal Visualisation (VV) using pupil dilation as a physiological measure of emotional arousal. A sample of 75 participants listened to audio recordings describing activities in a positive manner. Subjects were randomly assigned to the EI or VV condition. Participants in the EI condition imagined performing the described activity, while participants in the VV condition visualised the words constituting the descriptions. As predicted, EI led to greater pupil dilation than VV, independent of mental effort. Self-reported anticipatory reward assessed throughout the task was also greater for EI than VV, yet no difference was found for arousal, anticipated reward or motivation. Our findings extend previous work demonstrating the property of episodic imagery to amplify emotion to a physiological level using pupillometry. However, we did not find a transfer to motivation, which is in line with previous studies using verbal control conditions for episodic imagery.
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